Most people have never thought of addiction to the internet and cell phone yet there is a good deal of evidence that such is possible. Daniel Cummins has referred to cell phones as "the addiction in our pocket." His talk is well worth reading and a link is provided below. Consider the following quote from Puente and Balmori:
"Dopamine seems to be the most active, although it’s not the only one. Although each drug possesses its own mechanism of action, all of them intervene to a greater or lesser measure on a neuronal reward circuit known as the mesolimbic dopaminergic system, that favors, by means of pleasurable sensations, adaptive behaviors. Those systems of reward are located in the primitive part of the brain, where the processes of survival are inaccessible to the conscious or voluntary mind....Dependency or addiction to cell phones could have a physiological base, due to the interruptions that the microwaves provoke in the neurotransmitters in the neural synapses of the reward system of the brain. These effects are still under investigation and it is too soon to understand the neurophysiological basis of cell phone addiction."
Dr. Ramalingam Peraman wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of Natural Science, Biology, and Medicine in 2016 in which he concluded:
"It is a right time to initiate preventive measures against mobile phone mania, among students and public health without further delay as well. Everyone has to accept that relationship with mobile phones are risky for anyone, and it can steer us into “mobile phone mania” or “nomophobia,” a psychological disorder which is equally dangerous as similar to narcotic drug addictions."
Links to article on addiction to cell phones. Puente and Balmori, Addiction to cell phones: Are there neurophysiological mechanisms involved?
Letter by Dr. Ramalingam Peraman.
Cummins, Daniel, The Addiction in Our Pocket, February 27, 2024.
PowerPoint Presentation by Dr. Anna Lembke of Stanford University on dopamine addiction.
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